Give me silence, water, hope Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.

I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses – that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

The best poet is the man who delivers our daily bread: the local baker.

Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south? Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Latin America is very fond of the word "hope." We like to be called the "continent of hope." Candidates for deputy, senator, president, call themselves "candidates of hope." This hope is really something like a promise of heaven, an IOU whose payment is always being put off. It is put off until the next legislative campaign, until next year, until the next century.

In the house of poetry nothing endures that is not written with blood to be heard with blood.

Two things make a story. The net and the air that falls through the net.